Latest News

Food from Spirulina project concludes01 May 2015
Arthrospira platensis was literally on the tip of everyone’s tongue last week when approximately 600 students from Sweden, Belgium and Greece participated in a multi-site in-flight call with ESA astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti.

Life support21 April 2014
Spaceship Earth offers all we need to live alongside the plants and animals of our planet. When exploring our Solar System, it would be ideal if we could take Earth’s ecosystem with us to survive and feel comfortable in the harsh vacuum of space. Obvi...

Food From Spirulina experiment underway06 March 2015
Students aged 14-16 across ESA member states will initiate their ESA experiments this week which was inspired by the Micro-Ecological Life Support System Alternative programme (MELiSSA). “Food from Spirulina” is a biological experiment which dem...

An ecosystem in a box 19 January 2015
An unusual package was delivered to a hotel in Beijing, China, in 1987 containing a batch of blue–green algae that would spend five days in space in a capsule. The ESA-led MELiSSA project was on its way.

Space encounters of the ‘fit and green’ kind25 July 2014
It is not every day you get the chance to chat with an astronaut about fitness and sustainable food production. Space opens up to European science and education centers for hosting live hangouts with ESA’s astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti during her s...